


Pencil Dreams

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Artist Peter Hale, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5800681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been together for nearly a year when Stiles first gets home and sees Peter with a sketchbook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pencil Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted over [here](http://wynnebat.tumblr.com/post/137912762683/peters-hobby-before-the-fire-was-drawing-he-was) on tumblr.

They've been together for nearly a year when Stiles first gets home and sees Peter with a sketchbook. It's a surprise; he hadn't even known Peter had an artistic bone in his body, other than a love of interior decorating that nearly rivalled his love for Stiles. The sketchbook is brand new, but not especially good quality. The kind that Stiles could buy in the school supplies section of their nearby grocery store. It's even more jarring when it's resting on Peter's designer jeans as the man sits on their leather couch, because Peter's never found joy in denying himself expensive things. There's even a cutesy cartoon animal on the cover.

Stiles drops his backpack next to Peter's suitcase, letting it thump heavily onto the floor next to the couch. It's been a long day and he's more than happy to curl into Peter's side on the couch. Peter rests an arm around him, pulling him closer, but he doesn't say a word. He gets that way sometimes, remembering the fire, but it's never been quite like this. Peter's staring down at it with something like longing, like tiredness, and even if it's not nearly to the same extent as he looks at the some remaining pictures of the Hale family, it's something.

"There was a time in my life when I only wanted to become an artist," Peter eventually says, the hand around his pencil tightening until it creaks.

Stiles wraps his hand around Peter's, waiting until Peter unclenches it—splinters aren't as much of a worry for werewolves, but he's never wanted his lover to hurt more than necessary—and replies with, "The starving on the streets of Paris kind? Always knew you were a romantic."

Peter huffs, and there's a wry amusement in his voice as he says, "Of course not. I have too much style for that. I wanted to do portraits of people. There's always some who would pay for it, and I... enjoyed it."

"And you were good," Stiles gathers. At Peter's look, he adds, "You're much more proud of things you're good at, love." Stiles wants to kiss him, to chase away the somberness that still sits on Peter's face, but he forces himself to wait.

"That I am. I got my first degree in art and only took to law as a backup plan. I was good at both, but law was a far second. And then I'd graduated, worked a few years while I started building a reputation as a painter, and then... I couldn't draw for six years, and didn't try again for years after that. My hands... They don't work the way they used to." The last words are said with shame, and Stiles can barely take it.

Stiles nudges Peter's hand until it releases the pencil and spreads it, running the pads of his fingers over Peter's palm and the deep lines running through it. His life line's long, his head line's longer, and his heart line's deeper than the rest. Stiles had worked as a psychic on the side as an undergrad, and it had amused him to come up with different meanings behind each line. But now, he sees only healthy hands, unscarred by fire and their sometimes violent lifestyle. Stiles' own are slightly nicked and scarred, with a bandaid over one pointer finger after a bad papercut earlier that day.

"They look fine to me," Stiles says, a little quietly. He lightly touches each of Peter's fingers, and they don't shake. They're as strong as ever, just like the man. "Maybe you're just out of practice."

"I tried last week. Even my stick figures are lacking."

"Better than mine," Stiles tells him, because Stiles has never willingly taken an art class, and the best he's gotten at doodling is geometric shapes. "Want me to practice with you? I draw a mean triangle." And if they're really small, he's quite good at circles, too.

Peter snorts and leans over for a kiss. It doesn't last long, but Stiles relaxes into it, leaning into Peter and just soaking in the feel of him. It's been a long day.

"You want to talk about yours?" Peter asks, nearly reading his mind, and mostly his body. They haven't been together all that long, but they were friends for years before that. And before friendship there had been mutual respect, with just the touch of fear. But that was a different time. They're different men now.

Stiles shakes his head. "Grading, classes, idiot students, mostly." The life of a grad student and TA isn't glamorous and filled with too much red ink. It's not the red of blood that haunts his days now, but dreaded grading and students hunting him down to beg for better grades. He'd preferred kanimas, honestly.

"My existential crisis is more interesting?"

"Enormously more interesting," Stiles tells him. "I'll listen to your midlife crisis, too, if you wanna have it now. I'm even primed for it."

"I'm already dating a hot young thing, have a better car than my nephew, and enough money to keep you in your terribly plaid style. I think I've got that crisis covered."

"You can develop a hot sexual kink to make up for it," Stiles reassures him. Before Peter can start listing examples, he finds more interesting things for Peter's mouth. It's painfully sweet, this feeling inside him. He'd never thought he was good at romance—Lydia had often complained, and Malia was even more clueless than him, and even less interested in conventional romance—but there's something about Peter that makes Stiles yearn to be his knight in tarnished armor, to face Peter's demons with the wolf at his side, because even in his fantasies does Peter agree to stay behind.

Peter still lists a couple things, ducks Stiles' jab, and escapes from both the sketchbook and his boyfriend into the kitchen. Stiles and his hunger pangs follow. Eventually, as the night grows dark and another day of classes grows closer, Stiles forces himself to pull out a handful of essays and a pen. He wonders if grading in green will make his students pay more attention to the remarks.

He's looking down at the papers in his lap, but through his eyelashes, he sees Peter pick up the sketchbook again, opening it with a determined expression. Stiles smiles, softly.

The resulting portrait isn't very good, and Peter refuses to show it to anyone other than its subject, but it's a start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
